It’s time to swing for the fences before the season kicks off in earnest. And that means pairing together my favorite conference futures from the Power Four.
The payout is juicy, and as you’ll soon find out, we’re not backing a bunch of long shots to shock the world. There are Heisman frontrunners, soon-to-be Hall of Fame coaches and favorable schedules littering this gambling landscape.
So, let’s plot our course to a major payout starting in the much-maligned ACC.
College Football Conference Champion Parlay
- Clemson to Win ACC (+105)
- Penn State to Win Big Ten (+220)
- Texas to Win SEC (+270)
- Utah to Win Big 12 (+650)
Parlay Payout: +16800 (DraftKings)
Clemson to Win ACC (+105)
Clemson has been building toward 2025 for some time. Dabo Swinney’s refusal to embrace the transfer portal was unwavering, opting to develop and retain his stars instead.
His patience has paid off. No team returns more production, year-over-year, than Swinney’s Tigers.
And we’re not just talking contributors — there are bona fide stars on both sides of the ball. A recent top-100 player ranking from ESPN listed seven Tigers, with four on offense and three on defense.
A future first-round quarterback, an elite defensive line and All-ACC playmakers on the perimeter is a blueprint that has led to a national title for Clemson in the past.
The 2018 Tigers, which ran the table and won the National Championship, were constructed in a very similar way. The Power Rangers dominated in the trenches, and a well-balanced offense got better and better as the season progressed.
And much like that dream season seven years ago, the ACC is short on challengers. Only Syracuse finished the 2018 season ranked alongside Clemson, and we could be looking at a short list of challengers again this fall.
SMU crashed the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff last season but is tasked with replacing its offensive engine in Brashard Smith and nine primary starters from a defense that was wildly disruptive with 100 tackles for loss.
Georgia Tech will continue to be a tough out because of the brand of football it plays. The Yellow Jackets knocked off Miami and took Georgia 15 rounds to end the regular season, but they lost Romello Height to Texas Tech and have some serious limitations on the defensive side of the ball.
Miami needs to replace the No. 1 overall pick from last spring’s NFL Draft, all while reworking a defense that collapsed down the stretch.
And finally, Louisville is looking to be taken seriously in this conference title race after a promising 9-4 campaign last fall. The issue with the Cardinals is simple: they play down to their competition. Jeff Brohm’s team narrowly avoided upsets at Virginia and Boston College, only to lose outright on The Farm to Stanford.
Could Clemson lose one conference game in the regular season? Absolutely. But given its talent advantage, coordinator heft and big-game experience, this is a great place to start our parlay.
Penn State to Win Big Ten (+220)
If you sit through a college football game in the fall, you’re likely to suffer through an onslaught of financial services commercials. And one of the taglines that's required by some governmental body goes something like this:
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
Whether you’re investing in a mutual fund or James Franklin, that tagline holds true.
If we’re going by past performance, Franklin and his Nittany Lions will not be winning the conference because he’s been a trainwreck in big games for nearly a decade. In his career, Franklin is 17-26 (.395) straight up against ranked opponents and a ghastly 3-17 against top-10 opponents.
But in this sport, coaches earn badges for big game performance, or lack thereof, only to flip the narrative — if they coach long enough. “Big Game Bob” Stoops went 12-1 against top-15 competition from 2000-02. After that, he started to fold in big spots, turning that moniker into a bit of a dig.
He coached long enough to turn that narrative around, but he never experienced the same highs as he did at the beginning of his career when he won the national title in 2000.
Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney also struggled to punch through to the top of the sport. Smart could never seem to beat his old boss (1-6 vs. Nick Saban), and Swinney’s bunch choked in big spots so routinely that “Clemsoning” became a part of the college football vocabulary. The Tigers couldn’t get over the hump… until they did.
All Franklin can do to prove the doubters wrong is win and win big, and the way you do that in college football is by recruiting the best players and hiring the best coaches. I think he’s done both.
This roster is virtually perfect. The wide receiver room held the Nittany Lions back last season, and Franklin and his staff brought in three difference makers in Trebor Peña, Devonte Ross and Kyron Hudson.
They return a backfield with not one but two Heisman hopefuls and four starters return along an offensive line that finished 12th in Line Yards.
Defensively, the Nittany Lions’ starting 11 is loaded with NFL talent. Two years from now, we could look back on Jim Knowles' defense and say that every starter was drafted into the NFL.
Speaking of Knowles, he was the best defensive coordinator hire of the offseason, with Franklin pulling off the major coup of wrestling the elite playcaller away from Ohio State.
When you pair him with offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, a compelling case can be made that PSU features the best coordinator combo in the sport.
While it’s not an ideal conference schedule — they draw Oregon (Whiteout game) and Indiana at home while enjoying a bye week before traveling to Ohio State — a 2-1 record in those games all but assures them a spot in the conference title game.
They’re not priced as the best team in the Big Ten, but for my money, they are. I’ll put my faith in “Little Game James” flipping the narrative this fall.
Texas to Win SEC (+270)
I swear this isn’t a chalk-fest. My next pick is spicier than any queso being served down in Austin. But before we get there, let me add the Longhorns to this parlay.
I’m enamored with the Texas defense this fall. It has All-American caliber playmakers at all three levels of the defense.
Colin Simmons is an offensive tackle’s worst nightmare. He came screaming off the edge last season en route to 14 tackles for loss.
Anthony Hill Jr. is like a “create-a-player” from the CFB 26 video game. He has elite positional speed, uncoachable instincts and a “Peanut” Tillman-like punch that forces fumbles.
The secondary is loaded with experience, is known for its man-to-man stickiness, and is filled with roaming ballhawks who convert any turnover-worthy throw into a pick. Michael Taaffe and Malik Muhammad will vie for national honors.
If this defense plays to its full potential, with Pete Kwiatkowski pulling the strings, it won’t need Arch Manning to be some kind of hero on the Forty Acres.
Speaking of the latest Manning to take the college football world by storm, I don’t need Arch to be the next Vince Young or Colt McCoy to cash this ticket.
Steve Sarkisian has created a wonderfully diverse offense that has both a robust running game and a slew of high-percentage throws on the menu every Saturday.
Quinn Ewers completed north of 67% of his passes in his final two years as UT’s QB1 while climbing up to 15th in total QBR in 2024.
Manning brings more to the table in terms of arm strength and running upside than Ewers ever did. That arm strength will allow Manning to push the ball downfield more aggressively, something that Ewers didn’t do with regularity (34% of throws 10-plus yards downfield).
And Manning’s rushing ability should allow their relatively green offensive line to secure more double teams by leaving defenders unblocked in the read game.
The critique of Texas this season is its schedule. Arguably its four hardest games all come outside of Austin.
The Longhorns travel to the Horseshoe in the opener to take on Ohio State, wrestle the Gators in the Swamp, scrap for the Golden Hat in Dallas and face their demons in Athens after dropping not one but two games to the Dawgs last season.
Luckily, the Buckeyes game doesn’t impact this bet, and I’m not yet a believer in the supposed jump that pundits are expecting from Florida and Oklahoma. Texas beat the Gators and Sooners by a combined 63 points last season, and I expect Manning to take this offense up a notch.
And as for Georgia, while Sark didn’t get it done last fall, he’s proven capable of winning the big game in recent years. I may be wearing burnt orange glasses, but I think UT’s best football is ahead of it.
Utah to Win Big 12 (+650)
At the beginning of the offseason, the Utes were available in the Big 12 market at 18-1. That number is long gone, but that’s only because the secret is out.
The Utes added Devon Dampier and his offensive coordinator, Jason Beck, from New Mexico.
Dampier was virtually unstoppable as a dual-threat passer in Beck’s system despite the lack of established weapons on the perimeter or premium pass-blockers.
Dampier led all non-triple-option quarterbacks in rushing with an absurd level of production (1,166 yards, 19 TDs). Now, he gets to operate this offense behind the best line in the Big 12.
Pro Football Focus rates it the second-best line in America, so look out, Big 12 run defenses.
On the other side of the ball, I have unwavering faith in Morgan Scalley, the Utes' defensive playcaller. Utah’s head coach in waiting is entering his 10th year as Utah’s DC, and in his previous nine seasons, he’s created the RSNB standard — an acronym for "Relentless, Smart, Nasty, Ballhawks."
His run defenses have been the stuff of legend, finishing top-five nationally three times in the past seven seasons.
The Utes were consistently hung out to dry by a dysfunctional offense last fall, yet they finished third in third-down stops and eighth in passes defended per game.
The Big 12 is the deepest quarterback league in the country, with double-digit established starters piloting offenses across the conference. Luckily for Utah backers, three of the four stiffest conference tests for the Utes come at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The lone trip that worries comes at Baylor in mid-November. But even that trip is softened by the fact that they enjoy a bye week beforehand.
I’ve long contended that head coach Kyle Whittingham is a top-10 coach in this sport, consistently winning with brute force and sheer will.
This year’s team has that toughness and the right quarterback to elevate them back to the conference winners' circle for the first time since they went back-to-back in 2021 and 2022.
